33G 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 30, 18GS. 



COVENT GARDEN MARKET.— October 27. 



Abundance of rough articles and plenty of fruit, both English and 

 Continental, are the rule at present, and with a slow demand growers and 

 dealers have a difficulty in clearing their stands. New Oranges and 

 Lemons arrive now in excellent condition, and there are still on show a 

 few late Strawberries and some Salway Peaches. 



Apples Vz sieve 2 0to8 



Apricots doz. 



Cherries lb. 



Chestnuts bush. 12 14 



Currants 1 ^ sieve 



Black do. 



Pigs doz. 



Filberts lb. 6 10 



Cobs lOOlbs. 6 10 



Gooseberries . . quart 



Grapes, Hothouse, .lb. 2 6 



Lemons 100 8 14 



s. d. B. d 

 Melons each 2 6 to 5 











12 



3 



Nectarines doz. 



Oranges 100 8 12 



Peaches doz. 6 



Pears (dessert) . . doz. 1 



kitchen doz. 10 2 



Pine Apples lb. 3 6 



Plums H sieve 10 



Quinces . ... H sieve 5 



Raspberries lb. 



Strawberries lb. 



Walnuts bush. 10 20 



VEGETABLES. 



Artichokes each 



Asparagus .... bundle 

 Beans, Broad. . bushel 



ScarletRun.£ sieve 



Beet, Red doz. 



Broccoli bundle 



Brus. Sprouts }i sieve 



Cabbage do3. 



Capsicums 100 



Carrots bunch 



Cauliflower doz. 



Celery bundle 



Cucumbers each 



pickling .... doz. 



Endive doz. 



Fennel bunch 



Garlic lb. 



Herbs bunch 



Horseradish . . bundle 



s. d. s. d | 

 2 to 4 | 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 4 

 

 

 4 







2 

 1 





 

 2 



Leeks bunch 



Lettuce per score 



Mushrooms .... pottle 

 Mustd.& Cress, punnet 

 Onions. . doz. bunches 

 Parsley, .doz. bunches 



Parsnips doz. 



Peas per quart 



Potatoes bushel 



Kidney do. 



Radishes doz. bunches 



Rhubarb bundle 



Savoys doz. 



Sea-kale basket 



Shallots lb. 



Spinach bushel 



Tomatoes. . . . per doz. 



Turnips bunch 



Vegetable Marrows dz. 



S. d. 8. d 

 3 toO 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



*»* We request that no one will write privately to the depart- 

 mental writers of the "Journal of Horticulture, Cottage 

 Gardener, and Country Gentleman." By so doing they 

 are subjected to unjustifiable trouble and expense. All 

 communications should therefore be addressed solely to 

 The Editors of the Journal of Horticulture, d'C, 171, Fleet 

 Street, London, E.G. 



We also request that correspondents will not mix np on the 

 same sheet questions relating to Gardening and those on 

 Poultry and Bee subjects, if they expect to get them an- 

 swered promptly and conveniently, but write them on 

 separate communications. Also never to send more than 

 two or three questions at once. 



N.B. — Many questions must remain unanswered until next 

 week. 



Queen Anne's Pocket Melon. — The supply we had of seed was ex- 

 hausted within two days after our announcement. "We have not a seed 



left. " Thinking that I have the true variety I have sent a small one 



for the Editors' inspection. Should it prove to be it, and ' Cucumis 

 Melo ' would like seed of it. if he will send me a stamped envelope with 

 his address I shall be glad to send him some. — John Dukes, Nostril 

 Priory, Wakefield, Yorkshire." [It is the true variety. A similar offer 

 of seed is obligingly made by Mr. W. Henderson, New Castle Gardens, 

 Ballymahon, Ireland.] 



Polyanthus. — " If your correspondent ' Rev. H. H.' (page 283), has not 

 met with double Polyanthus, I think I enn let him have a plant. Mine, 

 however, are not very dark, and they seem to have become of a lighter 

 brown than they were when planted in my little town garden a few years 

 ago. They have yellow edges, and look not nnlike a small French 

 Marigold when in flower.— John Edmondson, 10, Dame Street, Dublin. 



Why and Because of Gardening (H. P. £.).—" The Science and 

 Practice of Gardening " will suit you. It explains why the practices are 

 needed, and why diseases, Ac, occur. You can have it free by post from 

 our office if your send your address and enclose forty postage stamps. 



Mangold Wurtzel for Seed (Inquirer).— You may plant these in 

 March, after all danger from severe frost is over, and if you wish to im- 

 prove the variety select the best-shaped and largest roots for the purpose, 

 not the very coarse overgrown ones, which are spongy inside, but nice, 

 firm, solid, good roots. We believe they should be 2i or 3 feet apart, as 

 the top becomes large if the season and situation are favourable. Small 

 roots will produce seed as well, but it is likely to degenerate the variety. 



First Pruning of Budded Roses {W. A. S.).— If a good head is 

 wanted, prune the shoot in the spring so as to leave three or four buds. 

 Being cut there, dormant eyes will break from the base close to the 

 Block. If the tree is cut close to the stock, there is nothing to take off a 

 sudden rise of sap. In such case the Briar stock would probably throw 

 np more suckers than usual. For standards, the first year after budding 

 three or four eyes are sufficient, and better than more or less. — W. F. 

 Radclyffe, Okeford Fitzpaine. 



Wild Flowers {A. Hughes).— It is impossible to say. All tho native 

 plants will be portraited. 



Heating a Greenhouse by a Stove (W. M., Exeter).— The stove you 

 name will do very well, provided you have an iron chimney to carry off 

 the products of combustion, which can go through the roof, a pane of 

 glass being taken out on purpose. The best iron stoves for heating such 

 nouses are those either having double cases, or at least having the fire- 

 box fixed in tho middle, but quite free from the sides, and with a flat top 

 on which you can put an iron vessel supplied with water. A brick 

 Arnott's stove would afford a more mellow heat still. There is always a 

 little trouble in lighting and cleaning stoves in a house ; and hence, 

 where it can be done, we recommend a small flue below the floor, and a 

 stokehole and furnace outside. You had better wait until you see a 

 notice in our Journal of Hays's Constant Stove, which we hope to give 

 next week. 



Iron Supports for Roses (A Subscriber).— Galvanised iron rods of 

 any thickness are purchasable. Tho most effective we 

 know are a quarter of an inch in diameter, painted brown, 

 are of various lengths to suit tho heights of the bushes, and 

 are each driven at one end into a wedge-shaped piece of 

 wood about 9 inches long, as represented in the accompany- 

 ing engraving. This piece of wood is tho part inserted in 

 the soil wherever a support for a Rose bush is needed. 



How Best to Spend Forty Pounds on a Vinery (A Con- 

 stant Manchester Subscriber). — This is all a matter of taste. 

 With fine rafters, moveable sashes, front lights, and panel 

 doors, you could onlv have a very small house for your 

 money; but with a 2J-feot wall in front, no glass there, ven- 

 tilators in the wall, a fixed roof, and common boarded doors, 

 or even a plain glass door without cross-bars, you could have 

 more than double the space covered, and therefore all the 

 more utility for your money. Then as to the mode of 

 building. If there is a wall at liberty some 10 feet or more 

 in height, we would fix the sash-bar rafters below the coping, 

 and on the top of the wall-plate, and take in some 10 feet 

 in width, or what would suit a 14*feet rafter. If you have 

 no wall already we would dispense with building one, and 

 have a span-roofed house from 16 to 20 feet in width, side 

 walls from 24 to 3 feet high, height to the ridge from 19 to 

 14 feet. We cannot say how long you may have such a 

 house, as we do not know the building material you may 

 want for your walls, pr.d we fear that wood and glass aro 

 rising ; but at a rough guess, and doing things plainly, nnd 

 finishing with a coat of antic-orrosion paint, we think you 

 might have such'a epan-rouft.nl house from 25 to 30 feet long. 

 Of course if you had a wall already there, and a lean-to. you 

 could have about 50 feet in length, and even more, if in- 

 stead of a brick wall in front you were content with posts 

 and wood. It will, however, be an expensive affair to build a 

 back wall on purpose, even if only 9 inches thick. 



Fuel (J. H.).— Sifted cinders and small coal arc the cheap- 

 est fuel for an upright tubular boiler. Good coke partly 

 broken is the best, with a few Bmall nuts of coal to help in 

 lighting. We do not think that fine coal mixed with coke 

 would produce a greater heat than coke alone. It will cause 

 much more smoke, and make the fuel cake more ; and if the heating were 

 to be confined to the sides of the boiler, throwing small coal on the top 

 would help to keep the heat down. In an upright boiler the heat will 

 be most effective when the surface of the fuel is incandescent or red hot, 

 and that will be best secured by coke alone after the fire is fairly set 

 alight. The damper can also be more efficiently used. Coal and coke 

 when burned together will make more smoke than coke alone, and there- 

 fore if the flue is long it will need more frequent cleaning. With a short 

 flue, a good damper, and a small opening below the damper, the most of 

 the smoke will bo sent back over the fire and burned. 



Furze Seed Sowing, and Planting Bracken Fern {A Pack of 

 Heathen*). — The seed of the Gorse or Furze maybe sown in March, having 

 previously pointed over the ground, and after sowing rake it over. You 

 will best succeed with the Fern by seeking out a place where it abounds, 

 take up its roots with balls of soil, and plant in clumps a yard or more 

 apart. This may be done from the present time up to spring. The 

 Fern will soon spread so as to cover the ground, if the soil he porous and 

 of a peaty nature. Tho Gorse seed is sown at the rate of from 15 to 20 lbs. 

 per acre. 



Peristeria Culture ( C. I,.).— The •* Dove Flower " you had from your 

 friend at Panama is, we presume, Peristeria elata, an Orchid by no means 

 common, and yet not one of the most valuable, though more so than 

 many. Pieces of broken pots should occupy two-thirds of the depth of 

 the pots, which ought then to be filled up with a mixture of chopped 

 sphagnum and fibrous brown peat, adding a littlo white or silver sand. 

 Compress this firmly, and in the centre introduce the plant, placing it 

 with its pseudo-bulbs elevated above the rim of the pot, the fibres or 

 roots only being covered with the compost. The best time to do this is 

 at or a little before the time of the plant making its new growths. A. 

 vinery is a very suitable place for this description of Orchid, as there is 

 enough heat and moisture in summer to secure a free good growth, and 

 the dryness to which the plants are afterwards subjected on account of 

 the ripening of the Grapes tends to well mature the pseudo-bulbs. Cool 

 vineries, however, are not suitable, nor are greenhouses, unless kept 

 more close than such structures usually are. A vinery having fire heat 

 in summer at itimes, and the temperature of 45° in winter, is suitable; 

 and so is a greenhouse kept moist and moderately close in summer, and 

 having a winter temperature of from 45° to 50°. An abundant supply of 

 moisture is essential whilst the plant is growing, increasing with the 

 growth and diminishing with its cessation ; but keep dry in winter, yet 

 not so as to cause the pseudo-bulbs to shrivel. A sprinkling overhead 

 occasionally will prevent this, but avoid making the compost wet whilst 

 the plant is at rest. 



Keynes's Nursery.— "In the account which I gave of Mr. Keynes's 

 nursery, page 294, a mistake occurred which has just been pointed out 

 to me; it is the end «f the first paragraph. "His foreman, Mr. Gill" 

 should have been Mr. Wyatt, to whom I was much indebted for the op- 

 portunity both of seeing the nursery, and also Wilton. Mr. Gill, as I 

 mentioned farther down, was my escort through the Roses, which depart- 

 ment he superintends. I am sorry for the mistake, as I was very kindly 

 received by both.— D., Deal." 



